London, Sept 14 (PTI) A logbook from the famous 1872-1876 journey of HMS Challenger, described as the 'greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the 15th and 16th centuries' will go on sale at an Bonhams auction here on Wednesday.

Estimated at 10,000-12,000 pounds, the logbook is part of the findings of the expedition that apparently provides proof that life existed on the deep-sea bed.

The expedition, led by British naturalist John Murray and Scottish naturalist Charles Wyville Thompson, is described as one of the defining achievements of the age and the scientific equivalent of the Egyptian Pyramids or the Palace of Versailles.

Conducted just 13 years after Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species, Challenger was tasked with constructing a fossil record that would test the new theory of evolution and became inextricably intertwined within the god versus science debate.